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This scene,
in which the Transformer "Bumblebee" protects Sam and Mikaela
near a bridge,
was filmed in the dry bed of the Los Angeles
River, below the Cesar
Chavez Avenue bridge. (In the photo above,
the camera is looking northeast.)

One Autobot hides
beneath the bridge (while helicopters search for them), while Sam's "car"
races along the side of the river bed. When the hiding robot drops the
kids, Bumblebee catches them, but is then captured by the military.

The bridge is
on the northeast side of downtown Los Angeles, just east of Union Station.
The address would be approximately 875
E. Cesar Chavez Avenue. *

Sam &
Mikaela are then taken into custody and brought to a secret government
lab
beneath a dam,
where they have hidden a frozen Transformer (which later escapes).

Now,
given all the L.A. locations, you might think that this dam was a local
one, perhaps
the Hansen Dam (that was seen in "Charlie's
Angels 2"). But it's not.

This
is the Hoover Dam,
on Lake Mead, about 25 miles southeast outside of Las
Vegas, Nevada.

When the evil
Transformer ("Megatron") escapes from the dam, a Transformer
chase / battle ensues between the evil Decepticons and the good Autobots.

Part of that
chase takes place on a freeway, as the robots "roller skate"
down the freeway and rip a bus in two (resulting in a fiery explosion).

These freeway
fight scenes were shot mainly in San Bernardino
County, on an empty stretch of the Foothill (210) Freeway,
which was still under construction when the movie was made. These scenes
were shot at the east end of the freeway, in Rialto
& Fontana,
between Sierra Avenue
(on the west) and Linden Avenue
(on the east).

(That's about 50 miles east/northeast of downtown L.A.)

But when we
see the freeway interchange
below, suddenly we're not in San Bernardino County any more.

Instead, they
jumped 60 miles away, to the interchange of the Harbor
(110) Freeway & the
Century (105) Freeway, in the
Athens / Willowbrook area of south L.A.

(In the photo above, the camera is looking
north, up the Harbor Freeway.)